First Prototype

The basic idea of our concept is to have the three parts combined in one product:

It consists of three units:

Mechanical Parts: linear or rotary units

Electrical Units: Motors, sensors, microcontrollers and power supply

Programming: The programming of the microcontroller

Instead of purchasing all these elements and doing the programming three basic modules are used which combine all of those.

The following three pictures show the brain, the linear and the rotary unit of our first prototype. The brain is responsible for the communication and power supply. It realizes the connection between the laptop and all other parts of the robot. The linear unit helps to realize movements in a linear way and the rotational unit works in a rotational way. All the units have many possibilities to plug other modules in.

The graphical user interface (GUI) helps to deal with the movements on the computer. This is the most important part. It is essential to design this part as intuitive as possible to give everyone the option – without any programming skills – to move the units. You will plug in all of your units to the brain unit and then connect it to your computer. The system automatically knows when a new motor is assembled and will show you on the computer which new options you now have.

Later on there should also be a version for people with programming skills. It should be as easy as for example the Graphic User Interface seen at LEGO. The first version looks like this:

In the picture you can see the linear unit (red) with the sledge (yellow) and the rotary unit (grey, blue and green). You can give those two modules the option to realize the movements shown in the buttons around: The rotary unit can move Clockwise or CC and the linear unit from right to left. To give you an idea how it can actually work the following video shows you the units combined running on this user interface:

What will you have in the end?

In the end we want to offer a big variety of modules of different length, accuracy and strength. You should get a free version of our Graphical User Interface to steer your units and you should get advises from our forum here at the homepage which should then be open to everyone.